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New adventures of a new school year bring excitement to many children. A new school year can also bring challenges.
“Roughly one in four children has a visually related learning difficulty,” says Dr. Brent Neufeld of Calgary Vision Therapy, who specializes in finding solutions for visual processing problems. “When working efficiently, vision helps a child to process and understand information. When not working properly, that visual system can contribute to learning problems.”
Vision is often missed as a roadblock to a child’s ability to learn, since sight is different than vision. Sight (20/20) is what the eyes see whereas vision relates to how we draw meaning from what we see.
How can you tell if your child needs help in building this visual ability? There are many signs: reversing words when writing or copying, confusing the same word in the same sentence and failing to visualize what is read, to name a few.
Fortunately, vision is developed in a sequence of stages, which means that vision can be trained and improved. Talk to your optometrist to find out how visual training can turn your child’s challenges into successes this school year.

Lucent Family Eye Care is a member of Eye Recommend, Canada’s Vision Care Professionals, helping doctors help their patients since 1997. We are proud to be able to help Canadians attain optimal eye health.

Eyeliner is a huge source of eye problems, especially if you are caking it on all over the lid margins, covering up the oil glands. The clear spots in the black field of eyeliner are oil glands that were uncovered by pressing on them. What is the big deal about covered up oil glands? Well if the oil is not coming out easily, it will not be able to get onto your eyes and your tear film will be less than optimal, often times making your eyes feel dry and uncomfortable and you will also be unable to wear contacts comfortably. You do not have to stop wearing eyeliner, just keep it towards the front of the lid margin, away from those oil glands!

Summer is starting to come to an end, but that doesn’t mean we can stop wearing our sunglasses outdoors. Our eyes are exposed to UV radiation year round and causes damage to our eyes in several ways.

Short-Term Effects:

If you are exposed to excessive amounts of UV radiation in a short period of time, you may experience photokeratitis, which is an inflammation of the cornea. It can often feel like a “sunburn on the eye” which may be painful and cause symptoms including red eyes, a gritty feeling in your eyes, light sensitivity, and excessive tearing. Fortunately, this is usually temporary and rarely causes permanent damage to your eyes.

Long-Term Effects:

The long-term effects of UV radiation exposure are more serious. These include:

Cataracts, which is a clouding of your vision that makes small print increasingly difficult to see and night time driving more difficult because of glare. If it gets bad enough, surgery is an option to remove the cataract and to replace it with an artificial lens.

Macular Degeneration, which is damage to the retina in the area of your central vision, resulting in a large area of blindness in your direct line of sight. This damage is not reversible, but if caught early, can be managed to slow down its progression or limit its effects.

Top: Normal Retina; Bottom: Macular degeneration

Pterygium, a whitish growth that starts from the white part of your eyes and invades the clear part of your eyes. If it continues to grow, it can eventually cover your vision. Surgery is an option to cut and peel off this growth, but may leave scars and subsequent irritation. There is a high chance that it will grow back if sunglasses aren’t worn afterwards.

Pinguecula, a yellowish, elevated growth that forms on the white part of your eye. Surgery is usually not performed on this because it does not impede with vision. The consequences of having these on the eye are eye irritation, dry eyes, and a cosmetically unattractive yellow bump!

Skin cancer around the eyelids, such as basal cell carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas, or actinic keratosis, etc can grow on the upper or lower lids due to sun exposure.

Your sunglasses should block out 99 to 100% of UVA and UVB radiation in order to protect your eyes. If you are unsure, bring in your pair and we can check it for you right here in our office with our UV lensometer!